Dr Paul Allen

"But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles ; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." ( Isaiah 40:31 ) This is one of the best-loved promises of the Bible , for it is easy to grow weary and faint in our mortal bodies, even when doing the work of the Lord . The answer, we are told, is to "wait upon the LORD." But what does this mean? The Hebrew word (gavah) does not mean "serve," but rather to "wait for" or "look for." It is translated "waited for" the second time it is used in the Bible, when the dying patriarch Jacob cried out: "I have waited for thy salvation, O LORD" ( Genesis 49:18 ). The first time it is used, surprisingly, is in connection with the third day of creation, when God said: "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place" ( Genesis 1:9 ). That is, the all-pervasive waters of

"Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God , the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding." ( Isaiah 40:28 ) Everyone gets weary, and everyone must rest. Even in Eden before sin came into the world there was a weekly day of rest, and each day of work in the Garden was followed by a night of rest in sleep. The Lord Jesus Christ , in the days of His sinless human flesh, occasionally became "wearied with his journey" ( John 4:6 ) and had to rest. On one occasion, He was so weary that during a violent storm on the Sea of Galilee He was "asleep on a pillow" ( Mark 4:38 ), while the disciples tried to keep their ship from destruction. He once advised these fretful and busy disciples to "come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while" ( Mark 6:31 ). We sometimes need to come apart before we fall apart! In the New Jerusalem , with